343 Industries' Kiki Wolfkill (Best. Name. EVER!) has dropped a few hints regarding the future of the Halo franchise, suggesting that whilst it was important for Master Chief to provide the focus for Halo 4, and saying that "he's not going anywhere", she hopes that the series might able to expand to "build strength and investment in other characters".

"I think it was an important thing for [Master Chief] to come back in Halo 4," Wolfkill told Polygon. "He's always going to be a pretty critical component of Halo and the game experiences. I would hope that we could also build strength and investment in other characters, for no other reason than that's part of what makes the universe interesting.

"Master Chief's not going away, but we need to be able to give people more connection points."

Wolfkill also hinted at the possibility of expanding the franchise into other genres, as Ensemble Studios had done with Halo Wars.

"How we look at it is 'Where do we want to be in ten years? What are the stories we want to tell? We have started to flesh out broad strokes of a few different arcs that are interesting. There could be opportunities where exploring a different game genre makes sense or exploring a different linear format makes sense.

"If the medium fits what we want to do, then we'll definitely consider it ... if there's a great idea we get energized around."

We've seen other characters take centre stage in Halo games before, with Reach focusing on Noble Team, and (my personal favourite) ODST providing a narrative-driven Firefly love-in. Would you like to see more in the future?